


Eight Reasons Why I Love Susan Pevensie

by guardyanangel



Category: Chronicles of Narnia (Movies), Chronicles of Narnia - All Media Types, Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Gen, Poetry, Prose Poem, Susan/Rabadash very briefly, mentions of sexual harrassment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-02
Updated: 2014-05-02
Packaged: 2018-01-21 14:20:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1553435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/guardyanangel/pseuds/guardyanangel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Gentle does not necessarily mean safe. Gentle means only that they do not realize you are getting your way until it is too late."</p><p>Alternatively Titled: "An Open Letter to the Radiant Southern Sun." 10% personal poem, 90% Susan Pevensie character study. Enjoy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Eight Reasons Why I Love Susan Pevensie

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr here: http://tamikaflynned.tumblr.com/post/82134301745/one-i-am-but-one-of-three-but-i-know-what-it-is. It has undergone edits since. This is kinda meant to be a spoken word poem, so reading it aloud may make it an easier read.

**One.**

I am but one of three, but I know what it is like to be the older sister. I did not grow up under the terror of war, but oldest sisters do not need to, I think, to feel the burden of being the grown-up. My father never served, but there were business trips, and my mother had hers also, and the gap between I and my siblings is large. I cannot help but play the mother. My friends tell me this every day and sometimes I do not think of my own mother, but of you: Trying to keep your three siblings together in a war-torn world and then trying to keep them  _and_  a kingdom together when they looked to you for that maternal air.

Susan, I know the pain of sisterhood is great as the eldest one, and the arguments were not small nor few, but still you loved them, as I loved mine.

_[*]_

**Two.**

I have never been courted by a prince from a Southern land, nor do people sing songs about my beauty, but I know things about the men who prize a woman only for her face and pretty shape. You were lovely, and likely got told so far more than I, but I cannot help but wonder if after the disaster of your almost-marriage to a brutal man, you feared the company of strangers. If you walked with a knife at the ready up your dress sleeve as I walk with keys between my fingers and a whistle at hand.

Susan, I have never loved a man who has hurt me, but sometimes when I am making a late night trek on campus I find myself running, afraid of shadows and men I do not see. Susan, how long did it take you not to flinch at the touch of another? Do you have any advice for the women I love who do it still?

_[to]_

**Three.**

I have no fondness for nylons and lipstick and invitations, but I will attend events and smile and say all the right things to the people that matter. My friends say I am an expert at schmoozing. I call it networking, and sometimes for strength I imagine you, proud spine straight as you appeased courtiers in one world and the people you met at your father’s embassy trips in another.

Susan, is it truly wrong to want to be successful and making the connections to get it, or have we both suffered the consequences of a world that does not love ambitious women?

_[the]_

**Four.**

They called you the Gentle. Most people believe this means you were kind, loving, slow to violence. I suspect all these things must be true. But the river that shaped the Grand Canyon was gentle as it wore the stone away. The ocean is gentle as she pulls you beneath her waves. Gentle does not necessarily mean safe. Gentle means only that they do not realize you are getting your way until it is too late.

Susan, Aslan was not tame. Narnia was not tame. Why should you be? Why should I?

_[radiant]_

**Five.**

For too long you were a woman trapped in a girl’s body. The only time you returned to the kingdom you had shaped, a thousand years had passed and all you loved and knew was gone. The first time around, you lived fifteen years, growing into a queen only to be a child in this world. The books do not tell us about the ache this must have put in your bones, but I need only look inside myself to understand it. Tragedy has a way of aging you, and when someone once asked me how old my soul was, I said, “Centuries.”

Susan, does the hurt in your very being ever lift enough to let you sleep at night? Does it ever become easier to get yourself out of bed in the morning?

_[southern]_

**Six.**

I am no banished queen from a lost land, but I have lived in too many places in too short a time, and I know what it feels like to rest uneasy in the skin you are given. I know what it feels like to never have home be where you are— whether where you are is a kingdom that you were not born in, a land you did not grow up in, or simply a place filled with people who have not experienced life as you have.

Susan, there is no word in English for what we feel in our hearts every moment, but I give you one in Welsh:  _Hiraeth_ , homesickness for a place you cannot return to, or maybe never was. I hope that someday, the weight of it will be less heavy for the both of us. I hope that someday, we grow roots that cannot be pulled from the ground.

__[sun]_ _

**Seven.**

I told you tragedy has a way of aging you. In this way, we are most alike. Tell me, is it better to get a call instead of actually seeing the wreckage? I imagine it must be, but I will never know for sure. Crashes are ugly things— too much metal and broken glass, and if the sight of a car accident is so burned into my memory, I can only imagine the damage it would cause to see a train wreck.

Susan, isn’t grief a funny thing? When I knew for certain there were loved ones in that mess of ruin, I very nearly floated away. Looking back at the memories, they are like something out of a movie. I only remember the highlights. Still now, much of the year or so after is little better than a haze. Was it worse for you, losing nine people in comparison to my departed three? Is there even a way to compare the heartache?

__[*]_ _

**Eight.**

If C.S. Lewis had written this poem, he would have stopped at Seven. This is the number he preferred. Seven books in the Narnia series, Seven Friends of Narnia. It’s beautifully symbolic, if a bit trite. I must confess to being angry with your creator for choosing it— if not Eight Friends, then perhaps he should have let one of the older ones depart sooner and let you have a place among your people. You deserved better. He said you would find a way to be in his allegorical heaven with your siblings and friends and parents, but never bothered to take pen to paper to grant us the certainty. He never told me if stories about women like us have the potential to end happily.

Susan, are you angry at your Aslan, as I am with my God? I do not believe Deities understand the limits the human soul has for tolerating sacrifice when we are constantly the ones losing. I do not think They know what it feels like to be left behind when They are always the ones leaving. I understand: There is a lot of universe to care for, and you and I are but minuscule, solitary creatures in it. But your Aslan died for you and yours as my God, supposedly, did for me, and so I do not understand why, if there is love that deep, They find it necessary to leave us so long suffering.

Susan, do you also tell yourself everything happens for a reason in order to get through the day? Do you tell yourself that sorrow must exist so we can better love joy? Do you believe it?

Susan, do you know how to forgive Him? Do you know how to let go of this soul-infecting bitterness?

Susan, if you do, can you teach me?


End file.
